The Colors of War
by Amhi
Summary: Colors are fascinating. War is intriguing. But, as Alfred finds, sometimes putting together the things he is interested in is not always for the best.
1. Chapter 1

The color blue has always been a favorite of mine. Often, it is associated with the good stuff, stuff like sensitivity, or trust. It can also represent imagination and loyalty – all the lighthearted, noble values you can possibly think of.

When I think of the color blue, I think of things like the light blue frosting on a birthday cake, or the blue bracelets my mom would only wear when she and Dad went out to some place fancy.

But now, I think of innocence.

I mean, blue is really an innocent color. You dress up baby boys in blue clothes, you look up at blue skies and feel nothing but joy bursting out of you, right?

Well, maybe the joy part is something that's a bit different for everyone. I used to look up at a wide open blue sky peppered with clouds of fluff, and then look down at happiness. Happiness was a bowl of ice cream. Happiness was making the little kids laugh, and maybe it also included falling down the stairs and laughing about it.

That's what blue means. An innocent type of joy.

But now, I look up at a wide open blue sky, and it's salted with mushroom clouds, and I don't look down at happiness.

I look at an entirely different meaning of blue.

Blue doesn't always mean something good. It doesn't always mean things like happiness.

I walk around with a rifle in my hand, and you know what happens whenever a kid sees it?

The innocence dies.

That's right. It doesn't matter if they take an innocent curiosity in it and come up to me eagerly, wanting to poke at it and see how it works. It doesn't matter if they back away slowly like frightened little puppies. They know what it can do, and most likely, they've seen what it can do.

The blue doesn't hang onto them like it does with people back home. It doesn't flow behind them like Superman's cape, all regal and mighty, safe and secure.

Instead of a light, airy blue hanging from their shoulders, the way every kid should wear it, these kids drown in it. Blue manages to seep into every aspect of their lives to the point where they are prodded, choked, _confined_ in it.

Sometimes, the blue takes them away. It takes pieces of them: an arm, a leg, an eye. Sometimes it takes their soul by blasting it right out of their tiny bodies. It doesn't have to necessarily be their own soul, either. The blue takes their parents, their siblings, their grandparents, and all that's left of those scared little kids are shells, walking around aimlessly.

And sometimes, I have to take those little shells and break them.


	2. Chapter 2

Orange is a vivid color.

It is strong and energetic, and offers strength during emotional crises. I remember this the most because of the bouquet of orange flowers I gave to my girlfriend before I shipped out. They were supposed to say something along the lines of passion and desire – or at least that's what the florist told me.

That day we had sat at an orange table at a café. She didn't know that it would be our last date for a while, or possibly forever. God, she looked beautiful that day. Well, she looked beautiful every time I saw her, but there was something about that dress of hers that just made her glow. It sucked that she chose to wear that dress on this particular day, but then again, it was great; I still remember the way her hair shone, and how her eyes brightened when I gave her flowers.

And I remember how those eyes immediately welled up with tears after I told her the news. I'd never seen her cry so hard before, and it felt terrible knowing that I caused her that much pain. We ended up cuddling in the backseat of my car, and all of her worries soaked through my shirt. I tried my best to reassure her – _Yes, babe, I'll be careful_ and _I won't ever leave you._ Neither of us had mentioned the possibility that I wouldn't come back; it was easier that way.

I am reminded of her whenever I look down from the helicopter and feel the searing heat of bombs billowing through the jungles, the explosions rippling upward just like her dress caught in the wind. At night, when the darkness is littered with bright orange flashes here and there, poking holes through the blankets of heat, I could pretend I'm at a theater with her, and that the flashes are candles from those corny romance movies she loved so much.

And in the rare times someone dares to light a lantern in the field and the light coats everyone with its warmth, I think about the day at the café. Though her picture is worn and faded, my heart swells each time I gaze at her. _How lucky am I?_ I always think. _How lucky am I to have such an amazing person by my side?_

Of course, the other guys like to tease me about that. They make lewd comments about her, tell stories of how their wives and girlfriends left them. They like to tell me that she won't wait, and that I'd better get off with a Vietnamese girl right now rather than go home and find myself alone. _We know better, kid. I tied mine down with a diamond, and she still left. What's holding you together? And don't say it's your love, because you know women ain't happy enough with just that._

I'd like to say that their stories don't worry me, but they do.

She's on my mind every day, and I wonder what she's doing. On the other side of the world, at the same time I'm firing at trees and buildings, is she out with her friends? While I'm crawling through mud and pissing on myself, is she studying for a final, biting her lip in that cute way of hers while she works through a problem?

The click of a magazine sliding into the chamber of a rifle always brings me out of my thoughts.

This time, instead of firing at invisible enemies and empty foxholes, we prepare to conduct a nighttime raid on a village suspected of aiding the enemy.

The heat is heavy, the darkness a delicious topping over the small fires they have near their huts. For a while, I don't truly understand what we're doing. We surprise the village, and the world is condensed to three colors: orange, red, and black. I help secure the area and I gather the children, and in the background I hear men sobbing, their wives screaming.

Oddly enough, the children are silent, but their eyes are wide. Some soldiers interrogate the men, tie their hands roughly behind their backs and pull down canvas bags over their heads. They continue this process until all the men have been rounded up, and they are forced on their knees. The men insist that they are innocent, and each denial is met with violence.

 _We know the enemy is near here, tell us what you know, NOW!_

 _I-I-I don't know, we have never talked to them!_

And the dust swirls up as blood spatters on the ground.

This goes on and on for hours, until the radio starts sputtering nonsense. The comms guy listens to the squawks, and then turns to the officer: _We're at the wrong village._

Everyone is still, and silence falls upon us as we realize what we've done, how we've ruined the lives of these people in just one night. The officer either knows how to hide his emotions, or was too shocked to give any sign of remorse or humiliation. He waves a finger in the air – _move out –_ and then pulls out, of all things, a wallet.

 _On behalf of the U.S. government, we extend our sincerest apologies. We offer these consolation gifts in place of any inconveniences or other unintentional offenses we may have caused you._ He hands one of the villagers a few bills, and looks back at us expectantly; we do the same.

We release the men, kick dirt over the blood, and stalk silently back into the jungle. That's when the children begin crying, and the villagers have no choice but to shrug off the events and resume their lives.

As we file into the jungle, I look back at the village. The fires seem to pulse slightly, but are smaller and dimmer than when we came in; they beat together, and that's when the night's events register in my mind. I finally realize what I helped carry out, how I helped _ruin_ those people, and my heart wrenches painfully in my chest. I want to run back to the village and apologize over and over for what we did – for what I did. I want to erase the whole night and cuss out the officer for bringing us to the wrong place.

Orange is truly a vivid color; it provides strength and security through times of strife, physical and emotional.

Orange is also a dangerous color. Its strength can be so immense that it has the potential to dim and snuff out everything around it.


	3. Chapter 3

Another favorite color of mine used to be green.

My shirt would always be stained with grass after playing soccer with my friends, and I became so good at it that I was given an athlete's scholarship to a university. Their colors were green and purple and white, which actually turned out to be a great color combination. I couldn't stop myself from thinking that I looked like a walking eggplant, but it worked together somehow.

Green was also my favorite because my girlfriend loved pistachio ice cream. I thought it was the worst thing ever invented, and always teased her whenever she chose that over the mint chocolate chip. I still shared it with her, though. She could make anything sweet just by being around it.

Green is the color of sanctuary, you know. My grandmother had told me this before I left. _Remember, you'll be surrounded by nature. It will protect you,_ she said as she patted my olive green army shirt. I disagreed with her, because I'll probably be killed by the jungle rather than be safe, but I just hugged her and told her I'd be fine.

But I can tell you this much. While green can be all those wonderful things, like nature and pistachio ice cream and fresh grass stains, it can also be the worst color you've ever seen.

I never thought I'd start hating nature. But here in Vietnam, the plants and the trees become a death trap. I learned to stop appreciating their beauty, learned to stop marveling at the massive sizes they grew to. Instead, I learned how the enemy melted into nature, and I hated it. I hated how the trees were so goddamn cooperative with those people, how the plants and the ground screeched our arrival and led us to hell in a foxhole.

It was because there was so much goddamn green that we were ambushed.

The jungle was hot, humid, and everything was so damn sticky it felt like walking through a tub of warm syrup. Normally I'd like that idea, but I was walking in my combat uniform with forty pounds of gear strapped to my back, lugging around an eleven pound rifle. Everyone was tired, hungry, cranky, and just ready to lay down and die.

 _Man, the last time I was in this type of wet heat was when I was fucking your girl, Jones_ , Rinelli sighed out as we trudged through the jungle.

I kept my mouth shut, and followed my unit to our target, until I heard Williams join in.

 _It's alright, Jones. Ya know why?_ Then he broke out into a popular army cadence. _Ain't no use in going back, Jody's got your Cadillac!_

And everybody immediately jumped in, their voices loud and strong. _Ain't no use in calling home, Jody's got your girl and gone!_

The beat of the cadence made us march in sync, our left feet pounding the forest floor in time with the song, and we forgot about the sticky heat. We were back home, with our wives and girlfriends and kids and not worrying about any Jodies taking them away from us.

And all of a sudden I was a bird – I was flying up, touching the sky, and I only heard the wind rushing past my ears. Everything was so peaceful, so serene, so I closed my eyes and savored the moment - and then I felt millions of needles underneath my skin as I fell from the sky, and my eyes snapped open and I watched the sky get farther and the trees rushed past my vision.

The breath was knocked out of me as I hit the ground, my ruck squashing me, my head throbbing painfully from smacking my helmet. I looked towards my right, where Rinelli had been; he looked like he was screaming, but all I could hear was a loud ringing coming from him. I looked down to where he was clutching his leg tightly – but there was no leg. There was only the dark red of his blood and the painfully clean white of his bone, and the pinkness of his skin and muscle combined with the sickly green leaves sticking to him, and it brought up a stinging sensation in my throat.

I turned and puked, the bile piling up with chunks from my MRE. The sight just made me hurl more.

Everyone was confused, running around tending to the wounded. As my hearing came back, the tinny voices of soldiers shouting orders erupted in the air, and as I tried to desperately scrabble for my rifle, something made me look up.

In the shadows of the trees was the unmistakable face of the enemy.

We both froze as we stared at one another, surprised. Everything slowed, and I only stared at this man who looked only to be my age, barely out of school. He crept back into the trees silently, his face slowly disappearing in the shadows –

And I broke.

I screamed, and I gripped my rifle and shot at where he was, following the sounds he made as he ran through the plants and the trees.

Gunfire exploded within the jungle, half of the platoon following my lead. We fell in line and crashed through the jungle, not caring if we bulldozed over the earth like hell. We fired and fired, and the man was stupid enough to go back to his base for safety, even with the knowledge that we followed him.

As we neared the base, everyone slowed. There was only a small straw hut, pitiful even by Viet Cong standards. We moved quietly and cautiously this time, knowing how often they hid booby traps. The jungle seemed to close in on us, and the air suddenly became heavier again, stickier.

As leaves crunched under us, I suddenly had a sickening sense of dread. I held up my hand for everyone to stop, but I was a second too late.

A mine exploded, and they attacked.

There were so many of them coming out from the jungle, their faces contorted in anger and disgust, and showered us with bullets, yelling and screeching the entire time.

We fired back just as intensely, throwing back grenades. Dirt and leaves rained down from each blast, and I fired my rifle through the smoke, jamming in magazine after magazine. Bodies began to cover the area from both sides, blood began to color the ground red, and I couldn't help the tears that ran down my face.

I wanted them to go away.

I wanted to kill them.

I wanted to go home.

* * *

We collected our dead and wounded after the fighting was over. When the entire body couldn't be recovered, we had to carry body parts so that they could be shipped home in dark green body bags. Some of our soldiers we buried in Vietnam because they had no one to go back to in the States.

It wasn't picking up human body remains or digging graves for my friends that hurt the most, though. It wasn't picking through the jungle and finding their legs with tatters of their dark green fatigues, burnt and charred that was engraved in my mind.

It was the corpses of the enemy that struck me the most. No one had come to reclaim their bodies – they were still laying there from the battle hours earlier, with the blood dried on their faces and flies buzzing around them.

I was instantly filled with hatred and anger again, but I had no idea what to do with it.

Williams walked towards the closest body, bent over it, and slashed off an ear. Fresh blood oozed slowly from the new wound. He pocketed the ear, and continued on to the next one.

Disgusted as I was, I began to mirror his actions, slicing off their goddamn trigger fingers instead. I must have cut off seven or eight fingers when our officer came up behind us.

 _What are you boys doing?_ He had an incredulous tone.

 _Taking some trophies, sir. They don't need these fingers anyways._ Williams had answered, still hunched over a soldier and cutting his ear off.

The platoon leader had sighed, ordered us to stop what we were doing. _There's something you need to understand. Even though we are sworn to defeat our enemies, they are still human, just like us._ He turned to me. _Jones, turn that body over right there, and look at his face._

I obeyed, kicking the body over, and my blood ran cold. In the midst of battle, I hadn't noticed how young he was; he couldn't have been more than fourteen years old. His mouth was slack, and his eyes were wide open, staring up at the sky.

 _Return your 'trophies', and bury them. They were doing the same thing as us: fighting for our country_. And he turned and left.

I cursed the officer and every enemy soldier I buried. Williams and I stabbed the earth with our shovels, threw the bodies in, and carelessly shoveled the dirt back on them.

We stomped on the graves after we finished.

It wasn't until we got to the boy that I was able to wrap my mind around the day's events. The explosions, the gunfire, Rinelli's missing leg, the man in the shadows.

I stared down at the boy, and I realized that the man from the shadows was not a man.

It was this boy.

I had stared into his eyes, and he had stared into mine, both of us scared and waiting to see what the other would do.

I tried to keep myself from crying, but I couldn't. Fat, hot tears started rolling down my cheeks, and I tried to stay quiet, but my shoulders started shaking, and I began sobbing aloud as I dug this boy's grave. The tears dripped down my cheeks and fell on my dirty hands, and soon my sleeves became covered with my snot, but I didn't care.

I felt terrible and horrible as the realization of what I did finally dawned on me in this green hell, in this shithole called Vietnam.

I gave him back his finger, and Williams, seeing me, gave his ear back. We took the most care in burying this soldier.

I want so badly to believe that green is still a good color.

But all I can think about is the boy disappearing into the shadows of that green sea of trees.

* * *

 **AN:** I know this story isn't getting much attention or probably doesn't feature as many cast members of _Hetalia_ as some would like, but I wanted to explore the Vietnam War through a personal perspective; using Alfred was the best way possible to do that, in my opinion. In addition, the last scene where Alfred and a fellow soldier are burying the Viet Cong was based upon a true event. It's important to keep your humanity, even during war.


End file.
